The Highest Mountain on Mars

The Martian Award for Foolish Courage blends ten ultra-light metals in a spiral pendant, a lustrous rainbow of pearlescent, gunmetal, and chrome. Clasped on a silken red ribbon, it is bestowed annually on those who best exemplify the founding principles of Martian society: tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds, high tolerance for personal risk, and misplaced confidence. Every year, ten recipients are invited to a ceremony atop Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the solar system, to receive the award. It is the highest, and the lowest, honor bestowed by the Martian Planetary Council.

It is my job to polish and array these medals in preparation for the award ceremony in the Mars Museum’s Grand Hall. What a way to employ a graphic design degree.

I’ve already set up the glass case that will house the medals, made the purest clear crystal and so translucent that the felt cushions (that I’ve already fluffed) inside appear to float. An hour remains before the council arrives, enough time to extract the awards from their leather bag, carefully clean them, and arrange them neatly in the case.

I hoist the first medal, it really is quite light, a few dozen grams not counting the ribbon. It’s a thin wafer of light metal, tough as a penny and smooth as glass. You’d barely feel it if it fell on your head.

I read the name lightly etched on the front face: Timothy Dibbons. I’ve read the stories for the winners: Timothy is a custodial worker in Isidis City, an older man who lives alone. One day walking to work he witnessed a pair of children fall through the ice at their famed Geode Pool. He ran to help, dove in, retrieved one child, but found his muscles paralyzed with cold trying to save the other. Fortunately rescue workers managed to pull both of them to safety. Unfortunately, Timothy suffered nerve damage and struggles to walk now, and the pragmatic commentators noted the children likely would have lived even without his intervention, that he should have followed the age-old wisdom to never jump into freezing water to try to save someone.

I pull my hover-palette closer, and select from it a micro-brush and jeweler’s loupe. I whisk away tiny particles of dusk from Timothy’s award, spritz it lightly with sparkling polish, then center it on its velvety seat.

Mr. Dibbons’s award is soon joined by one for Lillian Ankh, an army corporal who dove on a defective grenade to save her comrades who had all taken cover behind a bulkhead wall. Then one for Strom Gerix, a baseball outfielder known for his intense style-of-play, who broke his collarbone on a sprinting dive in the final inning of an 8 to 0 game. Then one for "Daredevil" Drummond, who bungee jumped into the caldera of Olympus Mons, a terrifying record drop into that legendary three kilometer indentation. She was unconscious by the time her assistants pulled her to safety, but she set the record for highest bungee jump ever recorded.

I can see my distorted reflection in the shiny metal as I work. My small, bespectacled blue eyes look like tiny crystals. My mother always said I had my nana's shining eyes, and grandpa's pug nose. As a child I couldn't decide if she was insulting me, or them. Now I can see a certain balance to those features.

I take a brief break to walk along the Grand Hall of the Olympus Museum. I approach the front windows overlooking the titanic slope down the tallest mountain humankind has ever found, an impossible fifteen miles high and 350 miles in diameter, stretching off into the hazy, pastel yellow sky of midmorning on Mars, a vast red plain forever falling away. I’ve been on this mountain many times, my home planet’s most famous landmark. I’ve looked over that ledge thousands of times. I’ve not yet gotten used to it.

Tourists from Earth, or Jupiter’s moons, often claim that Mars is ugly. Everywhere red, everywhere dusty and hazy, hardly any greenery, or flowers, or bodies of water despite centuries of terraforming. They claim it smells like corroded nails here. They still refer to Martian civilization as “The Great Mistake,” the first and most-pointlessly colonized planet. We Martians are stereotyped as hardy fools, defying the odds and good sense in building lives on this inhospitable, rusty rock.

From this vantage point, I can see the hover-tracks running up the eastern slope. The delegation must be on the mountain already, as even the fastest levitrain takes two hours to scale Olympus Mons. I mentally trace the tracks ‘til I see the distant vehicle, a tiny, silver line moving amongst the maroon landscape. I turn my gaze to the right, to the great mountains of the Tharsis plateau: Archaeus, Pavonis, Arsia, all peaking out through the haze, endlessly distant but so huge they’re still visible. You can see forever on Mars, though the every-present dust in the air makes everything appear hazy, soft… cozy.

Mars isn’t ugly. Plain perhaps. Lacking variety, maybe. But in that stark red infinity, I can find beauty enough. After a lifetime here, you learn to distinguish the many shades of brick red and ruddy brown. And no other world features such a colorful set of skylines depending upon the time of day: cyan, pastel pink, canary yellow. Looking at those beautiful skies as a child inspired me to pursue the graphic arts. And now I polish and prepare major awards, so things worked out okay.

And it’s so quiet up here, I think as I return to the glass case. Mars must be the most peaceful of the colonized worlds, and that goes double this high in the atmosphere. I can just barely hear the low hum of the museum’s oxygenators, heaters, and acclimitizers, the ubiquitous devices that make life possible.

I unpack the rest of the awards, including ones for an industrial whistleblower who thought his company’s losses hid embezzlement (turned out the company was just poorly run.) Another award would go to a comedian who performed a monologue critical of his crowd of wealthy arms-dealers (his set was courageous but a bit of a comic dud.)

As I work, I think about how my maternal grandmother won this award about fifty years ago. She was a demolition engineer who accidentally trapped herself and half her crew in a titanium mine, then freed them all with a risky controlled explosion. Most award-winners feel ambivalent about the honor, but still accept it for the free vacation and cash prize. But my nana showed her medal off every chance she got.

She even left me the award in her will, hoping it would inspire me to take chances in life. I sold it online to help pay my student loans. I’m a bad granddaughter.

I take my time polishing each medal, employing every tiny tool from my hover-palette, including an extendable nano-brush for precise cleaning at a distance (sometimes it’s easier to notice imperfections from a steeper angle.)

As I work, I imagine the magnetized levitrain pulling into the museum station and the dignitaries emerging. They enter the long hall just as I finish up. They nod in my direction, acknowledging our shared community as the hardy fools of Mars. It’s an indulgent thought, but it makes me smile.

In this reverie and work-flow, I only subconsciously note that the sounds around me have changed. In between the low buzz of the oxygenators and acclimiziters another pitch emerges, one similar enough that I don’t notice how odd it is. This sound is muffled by insulation, but appears strongest coming from the direction of the western windows.

Wind rarely reaches the top of Olympus Mons, typically content to buffet the high cliffs that form its skirt. But occasionally a jet stream gets trapped in a gully and shoots perfectly up the ledge. I couldn’t tell you what conditions need to conspire for a prolonged gust to reach this high.

But that’s what happened. There was some warning, I even perked my head up moments before the western window flung open, its strained joints buckling at the sudden force. The wind sent my hair billowing all about my face, and through that dark mass, I could see a tiny, round shape, trailing a red ribbon, flit past me. I turned to see the eastern window shift on its hinges, opening just slightly in the middle and that tiny trailing, silken ribbon, slipped through, taking its ultralight metal award with it.

It felt like something out of a cartoon. One of the awards, the final one, had flown free and out of the museum. I found myself paralyzed wondering what I should do. The wind had lessened, but a light breeze pervaded the hall. I ran to the western window, forced it closed, and reset all the latches: one of the hinges was damaged, but should hold. Next, I sprinted to the eastern window, I’ve never felt so slow, and gazed out into the midday sun.

That red ribbon should be easy to pick out, so much brighter in color than Olympus’s darker shades or the pastel yellow sky. But I didn’t notice it until I inclined my head. The award floated like a kite, it must be soaring a hundred feet off the ground. I watched it float, wondering if it would simply soar until it left Mars entirely. I followed its arc: lower and lower but also further away.

Perhaps you can guess where it landed, though “land” is a bit of a misnomer. The award floated to the levitrain tracks, then stuck in the air above one of the rails, captured by the track’s powerful magnetic field.

My mind swam: should I run to tell a security guard? What would happen if the train hit that floating bit of metal on the tracks? I tried to recall my high school chemistry and physics classes: the interaction of the elements, magnetism, electric fields… I could recall nothing relevant. But something from an old safety lesson stuck in my mind: do not come within a foot of active hover-tracks, the magnetic field is DANGEROUS. But if I left the award there, would it mess with the magnetic field? Might such a disruption crash the train?

Subconsciously I knew what I would do. I would take a foolish risk to save an award that celebrates foolish risk. The potential irony would have made O Henry or MK Shyamalan scoff. I retreated to grab something from my work area, then made for the museum entrance.

In a pinch, a hover-palette can support a human weight for an extended distance, particularly on a downward slope. The technology is not so different from the hoverboards we used to glide down Martian dunes when we were children. It would be more difficult to keep my balance, but the distance wasn’t so far, and the grade of the slope wasn’t too daunting. I made a running start, leapt, and placed my trusted palette under my feet.

I held the palette with my right hand, and stuck my left arm out for balance. Together we careened down the slope, in the rough direction of that little red, silken spot hovering over the tracks. I could steer ever so slightly by shifting my weight, but if I fell, I might roll down that slope a mile and scuff myself up badly. But it was too late to turn back.

I won’t draw out the suspense, somehow this cockamamie plan worked! As I passed the tracks, the electromagnetic field shocked the soles of my feet, luckily I had enough momentum to soar past, hooking the ribbon with the extendable nano-brush. Seconds later, the train sped by. I hadn’t even realized how close it was!

I tumbled onto the opposite ridge, where I lay, shaking, wanting to laugh, but forced to control my breathing in the low oxygen. I was vaguely aware of the metallic thrumming sound as the train rumbled to a stop: they’d clearly noticed me zip past.

Medical personnel emerged to check that I was alright, then invited me aboard to travel the last few minutes back to the museum. And in that acclimitized cabin, surrounded by planetary councilors and other dignitaries staring at me with wondering faces, I couldn’t help but giggle. I was feeling lightheaded, cut me some slack.

Eventually one councilor, an elderly woman with stately, thick grey eyebrows, asked me who I was and why I’d put on such a daredevil stunt. I explained as well as I could, stopping occasionally to catch my breath:

“I really never do things like this. I’m a graphic designer. I was setting up the honors case when that phantom wind snatched the final award and whisked it away.”

“Your balance was impeccable.”

“I've always loved the idea of balance.”

“Can't say as much for you sense.”

“I worried the metal would mess with the magnetic field. I thought you might be in danger.”

“You think THAT little thing could harm a hover-train.”

“It does sound foolish doesn't it?”

“And your name?” The councilor’s tone was cool, but she placed a warm hand on mine.

“Weronika James.”

“James? Not related to Diabolica James, the infamous explosion queen?”

“Yes, she was my grandmother.” I can't keep the deflation from my voice as I recall the fate of nana’s cherished award.

“What you did out there embodied the spirit of this annual ceremony.”

“That’s likely what inspired me.”

“You know, we have the prerogative to add award winners, even at this late date.”

The matronly councilor smiles warmly at me as we pull into the museum station. I return her smile. If they give me an award, I’ll wear it proudly.